FAIR is the national progressive media watchdog group, challenging corporate media bias, spin and misinformation.
There’s almost too much to say about this recent column Joe Klein wrote in Time magazine. But let’s start by parsing this: In the good old days of the last century, the years before the collapse of the economy and the World Trade Center towers, political discourse in the U.S. was, too often, rutted in […]
Eugene Hernandez of indieWIRE.com reports (5/11/09) that NPR censored its own review of the Outrage documentary for “nam[ing] politicians believed to be closeted homosexuals in the film, specifically those whose public voting record counters the civil rights of gay and lesbian Americans.” NPR cited its privacy policy as reason, but to Hernandez “it seems to […]
Journal-isms writer Richard Prince is highlighting (3/19/09) an article in the current issue of GQ headlined “You Think Your Job Sucks? Try Working for Lenny Dykstra”–the title of which might be an understatement, considering some of its reporting therein: A photo editor’s unflattering portrait of baseball-player-turned-financial adviser Lenny Dykstra as a racist, sexist and homophobe […]
New Yorker writer Hendrik Hertzberg tells (12/5/08) of being targeted by Fox‘s Bill O’Reilly for connecting Newt Gingrich to “anti-gay bigotry.” O’Reilly’s grievance against Hertzberg sparks from this passage in the writer’s December 1 New Yorker piece: Like a polluted swamp, anti-gay bigotry is likely to get thicker and more toxic as it dries up. […]
Just when you thought the “black voters killed gay marriage in California” myth had been completely debunked and put to rest, the New York Times (12/7/08) publishes an op-ed about Prop 8 and how black voters are homophobic. This comes one week after the Times published another op-ed (11/29/08) on Prop 8 and black voters […]
[mp3-jplayer tracks=”CounterSpin112108 Kai Wright and Andy Worthington @https://eadn-wc04-3257648.nxedge.io/audio/counterspin/CounterSpin112108.mp3″] Download MP3 This week on CounterSpin: The victory of Proposition 8 in California has, at least for the moment, put the brakes on gay marriage in that state. The post-election recriminations are flying, but the main story we’re hearing is that black voters turned out in droves—to […]
Calling herself “more of an ally than an activist for transgender people,” Veronica Arreola admits (Women In Media & News, 11/16/08) to “not being on top of each nuance of the movement” but still is aghast “at most of the media’s reaction to [Thomas] Beatie’s second pregnancy”: It’s not the headlines that upset me; most […]
“I’ve been twisting gender stereotypes around for 24 years,” Dowd responded. She said nobody had objected to her use of similar images about men over seven presidential campaigns. . . . “From the time I began writing about politics,” Dowd said, “I have always played with gender stereotypes and mined them and twisted them to […]
‘Transforming Coverage’ I want to thank you for your superb recent article in Extra!, “Transforming Coverage” (11-12/07). I can’t imagine improving on your coverage of the current state of media coverage of transgender issues. I was particularly glad to see you remind us all how media coverage has focused almost exclusively on highly successful, white […]
Transgender is hardly a new concept, but until recently it’s been considered by the media to be a topic for tabloid talkshows, not serious news programs. The tide is turning, though; as more and more public figures are coming out as having a gender identity different from their birth-assigned sex, and transgender characters are finding […]
In an August 21 story posted on the New York Times website about Democratic presidential candidate Barack Obama’s talk to a veterans group the day before, reporter Jeff Zeleny attributed to Obama a dig at the anti-war movement that the Democratic candidate did not make. After reporting that, “One of the biggest applause lines of […]
The firing of Don Imus by CBS radio and MSNBC provided an opportunity for the many elite journalists who appeared on and supported his show to examine their own roles in enabling his bigotry (FAIR Media Advisory, 4/11/07). But the prospects of an honest self-examination are dim, as illustrated by this exchange on CNN‘s Reliable […]
On June 16, FAIR issued an Action Alert questioning a New York Timess op-ed’s claim that “hundreds of anti-war protestors…appear at military hospitals and funerals.” On June 17, the New York Times printed the following correction on its op-ed page: An Op-Ed article on Monday, about demonstrations at military funerals, hospitals and memorial services, incorrectly […]
(NOTE: Please read the update to this alert) A June 12 op-ed in the New York Times made a bold accusation: anti-war activists have targeted funerals of Iraq War soldiers with noisy protests. But evidence to back up that charge is nonexistent. The author of the piece, writer Karen Spears Zacharias, recounted an interview with […]
In a move that most political observers describe as a tactic to increase voter turnout among his party’s conservative base, George W. Bush announced on June 5 that he supported a constitutional amendment banning gay marriage. While much of the media discussion of the issue focuses on the GOP’s political maneuvering, few reports examined what […]
When women’s basketball star Sheryl Swoopes publicly came out of the closet on October 26, she became one of the first openly gay athletes in professional team sports, and by far the most famous. It was a groundbreaking step made all the more remarkable by Swoopes’ star power: The WNBA’s only three-time MVP and a […]
[one_third_last]If FAIR’s work consisted entirely of quantitative studies and the well-documented criticism that appears in every issue of Extra!, the group would be akin to a conventional think tank. But throughout FAIR’s history, it has had a significant emphasis on media activism—treating media giants just as one would any other powerful political or government institution, […]
FAIR was founded on the belief that journalism matters—that getting out the truth can improve the world, while news that distorts or denies reality can have terrible consequences. To illustrate this conviction, we’ve compiled a list of 20 news stories published since FAIR’s 1986 debut that had a major impact on society—for good or for […]
In a lead article in the New York Times‘ July 5 Science section, headlined, “Straight, Gay or Lying? Bisexuality Revisited,” Times writer Benedict Carey reported that an upcoming study “casts doubt on whether true bisexuality exists, at least in men.” In suggesting that men who claim a bisexual sexual orientation are liars, the Times relies […]
PBS has pulled an episode of the children’s show Postcards From Buster that includes children with lesbian mothers. The episode was yanked the same day that PBS received a letter from new Secretary of Education Margaret Spellings condemning the episode and asking PBS to “strongly consider” returning the federal money that went toward its production. […]
